The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in Eighteen Volumes (1907–21).
Volume V. The Drama to 1642, Part One.

Table of Principal Dates.


The following table is a list of the principal dates mentioned or referred to in the present volume. It should be regarded as supplemented, from their respective points of view, by the tables in Vol. IV and Vol. VI.

  In the case of plays where one date precedes and another follows (in brackets) the former is the date of the first performance, and the latter that of the first extant edition. Where the former is not, even approximately, ascertainable, the date of printing precedes (in brackets).

959–975 Concordia Regularis.
c. 1110 Miracle of St. Catherine.
fl. 1125 Hilarius.
1127–70 Guillaume Herman.
1170–82 London Miracles.
12th cent. Play of Adam.
c. 1250. The Harrowing of Hell. (performed in 1487.)
1258 Prohibition of secular entertainments in monasteries.
1264 Institution of Feast of Corpus Christi.
1265–1321 Dante.
1300 (before) Cornish Miracle Plays (MS. 15th century).
1313–75 Boccaccio (Decameron 1350).
c. 1340–50 York Mysteries (MS. 15th century).
c. 1350 Towneley Mysteries (MS. 15th century).
1390–1420 Chester Plays (MSS. 1591–1607).
1416 Coventry Plays (MS. 1468).
1427 Recovery of twelve lost plays by Plautus.
c. 1450 Macro Moralities.
1469 Edward IV’s Charter to Minstrels.
1485–1509 Henry VII.
1485–1509 Hyckescorner (n.d. [before 1534]).
1485–1509 Interlude of Youth (n.d. [1555]).
1485–1509(?) The Worlde and the chylde (1522).
1486–1500 Henry Medwell’s Interlude of Nature.
1495 (before) Every-man (1509–30).
1494–5 Visits of French Players to London.
1495–1563 John Bale.
1497–c. 1580 John Heywood.
c. 1500 L. Wager’s Marie Magdalene (1566).
1505–56 Nicholas Udall.
1509–47 Henry VIII.
1515 (after) Skelton’s Magnificence (n.d. [1529–33]).
1517 Rastell’s(?) The Nature of the Four Elements (1519).
1521 (or before) John Heywood’s The pardoner and the frere (1533).
(c. 1530) Calisto and Melebea.
1530 Fall of Wolsey.
(1533) John Heywood’s Play of the wether.
(1533) John Heywood’s Play of love.
(1533/4) John Heywood’s Johan Johan.
1538 Kirchmayer’s Pammachius.
1538 Bale’s God’s Promises written.
1540 Lyndsay’s Satyre of the thrie estaitis (1602)
(1540) Palsgrave’s Acolastus.
1541 Cinthio’s Orbecche. 1543 Prohibition of songs opposed to Church teaching.
(1543–7) John Heywood’s The foure P. P.
c. 1547 Ingelend’s Disobedient Child (n.d. [1560?]).
1547–53 Edward VI.
1547–50 R. Wever’s Lusty Juventus (c. 1550).
1548 Bale’s Catalogus.
c. 1548 Bale’s Kynge Johan.
1540–69 Tom Tyler and his Wife (1661 2nd imp.).
1550 First complete edition of Hall’s Chronicle.
1553–8 Queen Mary.
1553 Respublica.
1553–1633 Anthony Munday.
1553–3 (1552–3?) Udall’s Ralph Roister Doister (Stat. reg. 1566–7).
1553–8 Jacke Jugeler (1562–9).
1554(?)–1606 John Lyly.
1554–1628 Fulke Greville.
1557 Stationers’ company incorporated. (Confirmed 1559.)
1557 lic. The Historie of Jacob and Esau (1568).
c. 1558–1625 Thomas Lodge.
1558–94 Thomas Kyd.
c. 1558–c. 1597 George Peele.
1558–1603 Queen Elizabeth.
1558–92 Robert Greene.
1559 Political allusions in ``common interludes'' prohibited.
1560–77 Misogonus (MS. 1577).
1561 The Bugbears.
1562 Norton and Sackville’s Gorboduc (1565 incomplete, 1570).
c. 1563 R. B.’s Apius and Virginia (1575).
1563–1631 Michael Drayton.
1564 Shakespeare baptised.
1564–1607 (or before) Henry Chettle.
c. 1564 Richard Edwards’s Damon and Pithias (1571).
1564–93 Christopher Marlowe.
1565 Contention betweene Liberalitie and Prodigalitie (1602).
1565 Cinthio’s Hecatommithi.
1566 Richard Edwards’s Palamon and Arcyte (1566).
1566 Gascoigne’s Supposes (n.d. [1566]).
1566 Gascoigne’s Jocasta (c. 1573).
1566 Albion Knight.
1566–7 Painter’s Palace of Pleasure.
1567 Pickeryng’s Horestes (1567).
1567 Fenton’s Tragicall Discourses.
1567–1601 Thomas Nashe.
1567 Gismond of Salerne (Tancred and Gismund, 1591).
(1568) Fulwell’s Like wil to like.
c. 1570 Preston’s Cambises (entered 1567/8).
1570–84 Preston’s(?) Syr Clyomon and Syr Clamydes (1599).
1572 Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
1573 Legge’s Richardus Tertius (1579).
1575 Gascoigne’s The Glasse of Governement (1575).
c. 1576 Erection of the first permanent theatre.
1576 Sack of Antwerp.
1576 lic. George Pettie’s Petite Pallace.
c. 1577 Thomas Lupton’s All for Money (1578).
1577–80 Drake circumnavigates the world.
(1578) Whetstone’s Promos and Cassandra.
1578 Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, including Harrison’s Description of England.
1578–9 Lyly’s Euphues the Anatomie of Wit.
1579 North’s Plutarch.
1579 Gosson’s Schoole of Abuse.
1580 Montaigne’s Essays.
c. 1581 Lyly’s Campaspe (1584).
(1581) Tenne Tragedies of Seneca.
1581 Sidney’s Apologie for Poetrie.
c. 1582 Lyly’s Sapho and Phao (1584).
1584 (before) Peele’s Araygnement of Paris (1584).
1584 Munday’s translation of Fedele and Fortunio.
1585 Death of Pierre de Ronsard.
c. 1586 Kyd’s Spanish Tragedie (1594, an earlier ed. n.d.).
1586 Licensing and Censorship of Plays. 1586 Arden of Feversham (1592).
1586–7 Trial and Execution of Mary Queen of Scots.
1587 (before) Faire Em (1631).
(1587–8) Lyly’s Endimion (1591).
1587–9 Greene’s Alphonsus (1599).
1587(?) First Part of Jeronimo (1605).
1587 Lodge’s Wounds of Civill War (1594).
1587 Hughes’s Misfortunes of Arthur (1587).
1587–8 Marlowe’s Tamburlaine (1590).
1588 (before) The Famous Victories of Henry the fifth (1598).
1588 Defeat of the Spanish Armada.
1588 Death of Leicester.
1588 The Troublesome Raigne of John (1591).
1588 Peele’s David and Bethsabe (1599).
1588–9 Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus (1604).
1588–9 Marlowe’s Jew of Malta (1633).
1588–91 Greene’s Orlando Furioso (1594).
1588 Kyd’s Solimon and Perseda (1599).
1588–90 Marprelate Controversy.
1588–92 Greene’s George a Greene (1599).
c. 1588 Greene’s (?) Selimus (1594).
1589 Greene’s Frier Bacon, and frier Bongay (1594).
1589–90 Lyly’s Midas (1592).
1590 (before) Locrine (1595).
c. 1590 Lodge’s (?) Mucedorus (1598).
1590 Peele’s Edwarde the firste (1593).
1590 Lyly’s Mother Bombie (1594).
1590 Countess of Pembroke’s Antonie (1592).
1590 First Part of the Contention betwixt Yorke and Lancaster (1594).
1590 Lodge’s Rosalynde.
1590 Spenser’s Faerie Queene, bks. I–III.
1590–1 Greene’s James the Fourth (1598).
1590–5 Peele’s Old Wives Tale (1595).
1590–6 Edward the third (1596).
1591 Marlowe’s Dido (1594).
1591–3 Lyly’s Woman in the Moone (1597).
1592 (before) Greene and Lodge’s A Looking Glasse for London (1594).
1592 (or before) Peele’s Battell of Alcazar (1594).
1592 Kyd’s Cornelia (1594).
1592 Plague revives in London.
1592 Marlowe’s Edward the second (1598 [1594 imperfect]).
1592 Nashe’s Summer’s last will and Testament (1600).
c. 1592 Lord Cromwell (1602).
1593 Marlowe’s Massacre at Paris (1596–1600).
1593 The True Chronicle History of King Leir (1605).
(1593) Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis.
1593–4 Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus (1594).
1594 Shakespeare’s Lucrece.
1594 Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors (1623).
1594 Munday’s John a Kent (MS. 1595). Pr. 1851.
1594–9 Looke about you (1600).
1596–8 Porter’s Two angry women of Abington (1599).
1597–1607 The Birth of Merlin (1662).
1598 (before) Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1609).
1598 (before) Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost (1598).
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1623).
All’s Well that Ends Well (1623).
The Taming of the Shrew (1623).
Romeo and Juliet (1597).
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1600).
Merchant of Venice (1600).
Richard II (1597).
King John (1623).
Richard III (1597).
Henry IV (Part 1) (1598).
1598 (before) Sir Thomas More (1844).
1598 Meres’s Palladis Tamia.
1598 Death of Burghley.
1598 Munday’s Downfall of Robert, Earle of Huntington (1601). 1598 Munday and Chettle’s Death of Robert, Earle of Huntington (1601).
1598 A warning for Faire Women (1599).
1598(?) Haughton’s A Woman will have her Will (1616).
1598 (after) Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602)
Much Ado about Nothing (1600).
1598–1600 Sir John Oldcastle (1600).
1599 Shakespeare’s Henry V (1600).
1599 Histriomastix revised by Marston (1610).
c. 1600 Haughton’s Grim the Collier (1662).
c. 1600 Shakespeare’s As You Like It (1623).
1600 The Weakest goeth to the Wall (1600).
1601(?) Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (1623).
1601 Queen Elizabeth’s Poor Law.
1601 Execution of Essex.
1601/2 Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (1623).
1602 Chettle’s Tragedy of Hoffman (1631).
1602 Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1603).
1602/3 Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (1608/9).
1603–25 James I.
1603 Florio’s Montaigne.
1604(?) Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure (1623).
1604 English actors at Fontainebleau.
1604 (or before) The Merry Devill of Edmonton (1608).
1604 Shakespeare’s Othello (1622).
1604 Samuel Rowley’s When You see me, You know me (1605).
(1605) London Prodigall.
1605(?) Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1623).
1605 A Yorkshire Tragedy (1608).
1605 Wilkins’s The Miseries of Inforst Mariage (1607).
1605 Gunpowder Plot.
1606 Fulke Greville’s Mustapha (1609).
1606 Dec. Shakespeare’s King Lear (1608).
1606 Middleton’s (?) The Puritans (1607).
1607 Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens (1623).
c. 1608/9 Coriolanus (1623).
c. 1608 Antony and Cleopatra (1623).
1608 Pericles (1609).
1610–13 The Tempest (1623).
1610 or 1611 Cymbeline (1623).
1611 The Winter’s Tale (1623).
1612 Two Noble Kinsmen (1634).
1612 Death of Prince Henry.
1613 Shakespeare’s Henry VIII (1623).
1613 The Globe Theatre burnt.
1616 Death of Shakespeare.
1620–30 German versions of English plays acted in Germany.
1623 First Folio of Shakespeare.
1625–49 Charles I.
1632 Second Folio of Shakespeare.
1637 Publication of plays without the players’ consent prohibited.
1642 Outbreak of Civil War. Closing of the Theatres.
1663 Third Folio of Shakespeare.
1685 Fourth Folio of Shakespeare.
1685 Revocation of Edict of Nantes.
1726 Theobald’s Shakespeare Restored.
1730–42 Voltaire’s adaptations from Shakespeare.
1733 Voltaire’s Lettres Philosophiques.
1741 Julius Caesar translated into German.
1759 Lessing on Shakespeare (B. d. n. Lit. betr.)
1797–1810 A. W. Schlegel’s German Translation of Shakespeare.
1809–11 A. W. Schlegel’s Uber dramat. Kunst und Literatur.
1827 Victor Hugo’s Cromwell.